Quotes about wisdom
page 11

“…a few years back, in the 1980s, in our efforts to bring peace and democracy to the world we assisted the freedom fighters of Afghanistan, and in our infinite wisdom we gave money, technology and training to Bin Laden, and now, this very year, we have declared that Bin Laden was responsible for the bombing in Africa. So what is our response, because we allow our President to pursue war too easily? What was the President's response? Some even say that it might have been for other reasons than for national security reasons. So he goes off and bombs Afghanistan, and he goes off and bombs Sudan, and now the record shows that very likely the pharmaceutical plant in Sudan was precisely that, a pharmaceutical plant… As my colleagues know, at the end of this bill I think we get a hint as to why we do not go to Rwanda for humanitarian reasons… I think it has something to do with money, and I think it has something to do with oil… they are asking to set up and check into the funds that Saddam Hussein owes to the west. Who is owed? They do not owe me any money. But I will bet my colleagues there is a lot of banks in New York who are owed a lot of money, and this is one of the goals…
Dana Rohrabacher: This resolution is exactly the right formula… Support democracy. Oppose tyranny. Oppose aggression and repression… We should strengthen the victims so they can defend themselves. These things are totally consistent with America's philosophy, and it is a pragmatic approach as well… Our support for the Mujahedin collapsed the Soviet Union. Yes, there was a price to pay, because after the Soviet Union collapsed, we walked away, and we did not support those elements in the Mujahedin who were somewhat in favor of the freedom and western values. With those people who oppose this effort of pro democracy foreign policy, a pro freedom foreign policy rather than isolation foreign policy, they would have had us stay out of that war in Afghanistan. They would never have had us confronting Soviet aggression in different parts of the world… Mr. Speaker, the gentleman does not think it is proper for us to offer those people who are struggling for freedoms in Iraq against their dictatorship a helping hand?
Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think it would be absolutely proper to do that, as long as it came out of the gentleman's wallet and we did not extract it from somebody in this country, a taxpayer at the point of a gun and say, look, bin Laden is a great guy. I want more of your money. That is what we did in the 1980s. That is what the Congress did. They went to the taxpayers, they put a gun to their head, and said, you pay up, because we think bin Laden is a freedom fighter.
Dana Rohrabacher: Well, if the gentleman will further yield, it was just not handled correctly.
Ron Paul: Mr. Speaker, again reclaiming my time, the policy is flawed. The policy is flawed.”

Ron Paul (1935) American politician and physician

Debate on the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, October 5, 1998 http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec98/cr100598.htm 1990s

Money, War, People, World

“To think the world therefore a general Bedlam, or place of madmen, and oneself a physician, is the most necessary point of present wisdom.”

Thomas Traherne (1636–1674) English poet

Fourth Century, sect. 20.
Centuries of Meditations

World, Thinking

“For a thinking man is where Wisdom is at home.”

Zoroaster Persian prophet and founder of Zoroastrianism

Ahunuvaiti Gatha; Yasna 30, 9.
The Gathas

Home, Thinking

“Wisdom denotes the pursuing of the best Ends by the best Means.”

Francis Hutcheson (philosopher) (1694–1746) Irish philosopher

An Inquiry into the Original of our Ideas of Beauty and Virtue (1725), Treatise I, Sect. V

“I believe nothing. I have shut myself away from the rocks and wisdoms of ages, and from the so-called great teachers of all time, and perhaps because of that isolation I am given to bizarre hospitalities. I shut the front door upon Christ and Einstein, and at the back door hold out a welcoming hand to little frogs and periwinkles. I believe nothing of my own that I have ever written. I cannot accept that the products of minds are subject-matter for beliefs. But I accept, with reservations that give me freedom to ridicule the statement at any other time, that showers of an edible substance that has not been traced to an origin upon this earth, have fallen from the sky, in Asia Minor.”

Charles Fort book Lo!

Pt 1, Ch. 3 http://www.resologist.net/lo103.htm; part of this has sometimes been misquoted as: "I cannot accept that the products of the mind are subject-matter for belief." Lo! (1931)

Age, Freedom, Teachers, Time

“Then he tried to recall the lessons of Mr. Wisdom. “it is I myself, eternal Spirit, who drives this Me, the slave, along that ledge. I ought not to care whether he falls and breaks his neck or not. It is not he that is real, it is I – I – I.”

Clive Staples Lewis book The Pilgrim's Regress

Pilgrim’s Regress 137
The Pilgrim's Regress (1933)

“I've often thought that if our zoning boards could be put in charge of botanists, of zoologists and geologists, and people who know about the earth, we would have much more wisdom in such planning than we have when we leave it to the engineers.”

William O. Douglas (1898–1980) Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States

Remarks at conference sponsored by the American Histadrut Cultural Exchange Institute, Harriman, New York (February 17–19, 1967); reported in Judd L. Teller, ed., Government and the Democratic Process; A Symposium by American and Israeli Experts (1969), p. 16
Other speeches and writings

People

“Wisdom, virtue, morality, all these have fallen out of fashion: everybody worships at the shrine of commerce.”

Charles Fourier (1772–1837) French utopian socialist and philosopher

The Theory of the Four Movements (1808), G. Jones, ed. (1966), p. 269

Fashion

“We don't dance with leprechauns at the Palace of Wisdom.”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

The Palace Of Wisdom

Dance

“I am a member of a Liberal Government. I am in association with the Liberal party. I have never swerved from what I conceived to be those truly Conservative objects and desires with which I entered life. I am, if possible, more fondly attached to the institutions of my country than I was when as a boy I wandered among the sand-hills of Seaforth or the streets of Liverpool. But experience has brought with it its lessons. I have learnt that there is wisdom in a policy of trust, and folly in a policy of mistrust. I have not refused to receive the signs of the times. I have observed the effect that has been produced by Liberal legislation, and if we are told…that all the feelings of the country are in the best and broadest sense Conservative,—that is to say, that the people value the country and the laws and institutions of the country; if we are told that, I say honesty compels us to admit that result has been brought about by Liberal legislation.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech at Liverpool (18 July 1865), quoted in The Times (19 July 1865), p. 11.
1860s

Life, People, Law, Feeling

“Way over yonder is a place I have seen
In a garden of wisdom from some long ago dream.”

Carole King (1942) Nasa

Way Over Yonder
Song lyrics, Tapestry (1971)

Dreams, Way

“India represents the new world in a unique sense. Traditionally democracies were trying to bring equality to all walks of life, today there is a change. Democracy wants to enable every country to have the equal right to be different; it's a collection of differences, not an attempt to force or impose equality on every country. I think India is the greatest show of how so many differences in language, in sects can coexist facing great suffering and keeping full freedom… Many of the countries in the Middle East should learn from you how to escape poverty. You didn't escape poverty by getting American dollars or Russian Roubles but by introducing your own internal reforms and by understanding that the new call of modernity is science. In between the spiritual wealth of Gandhi and the earthly wisdom of Nehru, you combined a great performance of spirit and practice to escape poverty…I know you still have a long way to go but you do it without compromising freedom. The temptation when you're such a large country to introduce discipline and imposition is great but you tried to do it, to make progress not with force and discipline but in an open way. Many of us were educated on the literature of India when we fell in love we read Rabindranath Tagore and when we matured we tried to understand Gandhi.”

Shimon Peres (1923–2016) Israeli politician, 8th prime minister and 9th president of Israel

Israeli President Shimon Peres praises India as greatest 'show of co-existence' http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2012-12-04/news/35594466_1_greatest-show-mahatma-gandhi-democracies (4 December 2012)

Love, Life, World, Education

“How lasting the impact of social media will have is yet to be determined, but one thing for sure, it has turned the chain of influence upside down. Today the reader, the lowly reader, that presumably passive consumer of all the great insight handed down by the reporter, confirmed by the analyst, attested to by the reference customer—this reader, I say, has now become the writer! Except it is not a reader/writer. It is reader/writers at large, many readers, the wisdom (or madness) of crowds. We have embarked upon the world's largest and longest cocktail party, and every issue imaginable is up for grabs.”

Geoffrey Moore (1946) American business writer

Paul Gillin, ‎Geoffrey A. Moore (2009), The New Influencers: A Marketer's Guide to the New Social Media. p. vii

World, Imagination, Madness

“Being cheerful and affable with people is by itself half of wisdom.”

Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.76, p. 60
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

People

“She had been restless and forceful, a killer of the border hills, yet she had a childlike faith in love. She had given herself to him and never doubted the wisdom of the gift as he had sometimes doubted it. She had kept the faith, and she was dead.”

Bernard Cornwell (1944) British writer

Major Richard Sharpe (describing his murdered wife, Teresa Moreno) p. 339
Sharpe (Novel Series), Sharpe's Enemy (1984)

Love, Faith, Dead

“His background is not simply the Abbey School of Dunfermline (where he is reputed to have been a schoolmaster), but the surrounding Scottish countryside and community to which he belonged. His wisdom – and his poems are very wise about life – evidently came from his having lived long and profoundly as a member of that whole Scottish community.”

Robert Henryson (1425–1506) Scottish makar (poet)

John Speirs, in Boris Ford (ed.) Medieval Literature: Chaucer and the Alliterative Tradition (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982) p. 85.
Criticism

Life, School, Communication

“In the tradition of American constitutionalism, all men are equally endowed by their Creator with certain rights. The equality of man is understood in the light of man's inequality with God: because men are not and never can become God or gods — because unqualified wisdom is never available to human beings — only government by the consent of the governed, and under the rule of law, is intrinsically in accordance with the eternal order.”

Harry V. Jaffa (1918–2015) American historian and collegiate professor

1990s, The End of History Means the End of Freedom (1990)

Men, God, Law, Light

“(…) I have written so far around 200 books and articles on different aspects of science, philosophy, theology, and hekmat (wisdom). (…) I never entered the service of any king as a military man or a man of office, and if I ever did have a conversation with a king, it never went beyond my medical responsibility and advice. (…) Those who have seen me know, that I did not into excess with eating, drinking or acting the wrong way. As to my interest in lil pump yuhh!! people know perfectly well and must have witnessed how I have devoted all my life to science since my youth. My patience and diligence in the pursuit of science has been such that on one special issue specifically I have written 20,000 pages (in small print), moreover I spent fifteen years of my life - night and day - writing the big collection entitled Al Hawi. It was during this time that I lost my eyesight, my hand became paralyzed, with the result that I am now deprived of reading and writing. Nonetheless, I've never given up, but kept on reading and writing with the help of others. I could make concessions with my opponents and admit some shortcomings, but I am most curious what they have to say about my scientific achievement. If they consider my approach incorrect, they could present their views and state their points clearly, so that I may study them, and if I determined their views to be right, I would admit it. However, if I disagreed, I would discuss the matter to prove my standpoint. If this is not the case, and they merely disagree with my approach and way of life, I would appreciate they only use my written knowledge and stop interfering with my behaviour.”

Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi (865–925) Persian polymath, physician, alchemist and chemist, philosopher

Lost History: The Enduring Legacy of Muslim Scientists, Thinkers, and Artists

Life, People, Books, Youth

“This must be our belief when we have a correct knowledge of our own self, and comprehend the true nature of everything; we must be content, and not trouble our mind with seeking a certain final cause for things that have none, or have no other final cause but their own existence, which depends on the Will of God, or, if you prefer, on the Divine Wisdom.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.13

God, Nature, Knowledge, Dependency

“People may have too much of a good thing:
Full as an egg of wisdom thus I sing.”

John Wolcot (1738–1819) English satirist

Subjects for Painters, The Gentleman and his Wife; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 617.

People, Singing

“Nine-tenths of wisdom is appreciation. Go find somebody's hand and squeeze it, while there's time.”

Dale Dauten (1950) American writer

Cited in: Colleen Zuck etal. (2002) Daily Word for Families, p. 167

Time

“Wisdom is the assimilated knowledge in us, gained from an intelligent estimation and close study of our own direct and indirect experience in the world.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

Quotations from Gurudev’s teachings, Chinmya Mission Chicago

World, Intelligence, Knowledge, Study

“Thales, the Milesian, is said to be the first author of it1; who used to say, that, for a man to know himself, is the hardest thing in the world2. It was afterwards adopted by Chylon the Lacedemonian; and is one of those three precepts which Pliny affirms to have been consecrated at Delphos in golden letters. It was afterwards greatly admired, and frequently used by others1; till at length it acquired the authority of a divine oracle; and was supposed to have been given originally by Apollo himself. Of which general opinion Cicero gives us this reason; "because it hath such a weight of sense and wisdom in it, as appears too great to be attributed to any man*." And this opinion, of its coming originally from Apollo himself, perhaps was the reason that it was written in golden capitals over the door of his temple at Delphos.
And why this excellent precept should not be held in as high esteem in the Christian world as it was in the heathen, is hard to conceive. Human nature is the same now as it was then: the heart as deceitful; and the necessity of watching, knowing, and keeping it, the same.”

John Mason (1706–1763) English Independent minister and author

A Treatise on Self-Knowledge (1745)

World, Nature, Sense, Appearance

“I am — your Bliss
I am — your Smile
I am — your Joy
I am — your Rest
I am — your Strength
I am — your Valor
I am — your Wisdom”

Nicholas Roerich (1874–1947) Russian painter, writer, archaeologist, theosophist, enlightener, philosopher

Leaves Of Morya's Garden (1924 - 1925), Book I : The Call (1924)

Smile, Joy

“Both knowledge and wisdom extend man's reach. Knowledge led to computers, wisdom to chopsticks.”

Alan Perlis (1922–1990) American computer scientist

The Synthesis of Algorithmic Systems, 1966

Knowledge

“The guru is nothing but pure consciousness, Bliss and eternal wisdom.”

Chinmayananda Saraswati (1916–1993) Indian spiritual teacher

In Kenopanishad http://books.google.co.in/books?id=Xp3UWxnha7EC&pg=PA56, p. 56

“Who mix'd reason with pleasure, and wisdom with mirth:
If he had any faults, he has left us in doubt.”

Oliver Goldsmith (1728–1774) Irish physician and writer

Source: Retaliation (1774), Line 24.

Pleasure

“True faith, by a mighty effort of the will, fixes its gaze on our Divine Helper, and there finds it possible and wise to lose its fears. It is madness to say, "I will not be afraid; "it is wisdom and peace to say, "I will trust and not be afraid."”

Alexander Maclaren (1826–1910) British minister

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 229.

Fear, Peace, Faith, Effort

“The preface to the French edition of that work contains the following passage: "To me the French edition of my work is not a mere translation, but a transcription of ideas into a language in which it should have been written in the first place… I proudly acknowledge… my master. His words are among the most brilliant recollections of my youth; his piercing wisdom and potent prose have inspired my efforts of a riper age. To the memory of Henri Poincaré, the intellectual giant who was the first to recognize the role which the idiosyncrasies of the race play in the evolution of scientific ideas, I dedicate this book.”

Tobias Dantzig (1884–1956) American mathematician

Preface
Henri Poincaré, Critic of Crisis: Reflections on His Universe of Discourse (1954)

Books, Youth, Age, Idea

“No person's gain in wisdom is diminished by anyone else's gain.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 383 ( See also: Vilfredo Pareto)

Personality

“I feel the deepest veneration for the divine being, and therefore I am careful not to attribute to him unjust, fickle behavior, which would be condemned by the meanest mortal. Because of that, dear sister, I prefer not to believe that the almighty, benevolent being is at all concerned with human affairs. Rather I do attribute everything that happens to the living beings and certain effects of incalculable causes and I silently bow down before this being which is worthy of adoration, by admitting my ignorance concerning his ways, which his godly wisdom chose not to reveal.”

Frederick II of Prussia (1712–1786) king of Prussia

Ich empfinde für das göttliche Wesen die tiefste Verehrung und hüte mich deshalb sehr, ihm ein ungerechtes, wankelmütiges Verhalten zuzuschreiben, das man beim geringsten Sterblichen verurteilen würde. Aus diesem Grunde, liebe Schwester, glaube ich lieber nicht, dass das allmächtige, gütige Wesen sich im mindesten um die menschlichen Angelegenheiten kümmert. Vielmehr schreibe ich alles, was geschieht, den Geschöpfen und notwendigen Wirkungen unberechenbarer Ursachen zu und beuge mich schweigend vor diesem anbetungswürdigen Wesen, indem ich meine Unwissenheit über seine Wege eingestehe, die mir zu offenbaren seiner göttlichen Weisheit nicht gefallen hat.
Letter to princess Amalie von Preußen

Way, Behavior, Feeling, Sister

“God only, however, selects a tyrant for a people that deserves to be oppressed. At that time, the Lord of the world establishes over them a tyrant who will avenge those who had been oppressed and brutalized. Such have been some among the temporal rulers. At that time, the Lord of the world places over such a people a tyrant. so that they might avenge those wronged. — in such a way that the despot does not realize that he is aiding his Lord and avenging the blood of the oppressed upon those who had tormented them. This is apparent today, and in some stations it is being implemented. Know for a certainty that the Lord of the world without any doubt knows the tyrant from the good monarch. Rather, everything he does is for the sake of some wisdom, and he knows more about the final outcome of such matters.”

Subh-i-Azal (1831–1912) Persian religious leader

Treatise on Kingship

God, People, World, Way

“The air is pure and serene, lit by a light Divine, and by it we shall discover, fix, and contemplate the eternal Truth, with purified and illuminated eyes. There, too, all things are transformed, are one only Truth, one only image in the mirror of the Wisdom of God; and God created us that we might find, know, and possess this image in our essence and the Purity of our intelligence. Contemplating, applying our minds to this in the Divine Light, with simple and spiritual eyes, we attain to contemplative life.”

John Ruysbroeck (1293–1381) Flemish mystic

Source: The Seven Steps of the Ladder of Spiritual Love, p. 149

Life, God, Truth, Intelligence

“Do sincerely repent, so that you stand before God; wail and weep with David; put on sackcloth and raiments of hair; scatter ashes upon your heads; humble yourselves with the king of Nineveh; confess your faults with Manasseh; die unto your ambitious flesh and pride; fear the Lord, your God, with all your powers; judge in all wisdom with fear and trembling; help the oppressed; grieve not the distressed; promote the just cause of the widows and orphans; protect the good; punish the evil in a christian manner; discharge the duties of your offices properly; seek the kingdom and country that will endure forever; and reflect that you, however highly esteemed, upon earth are only pilgrims and sojourners in a strange land.”

Menno Simons (1496–1561) Dutch theologian, founder of the Mennonites

Exhortation http://www.mennosimons.net/ft016-exhortation.html

God, Fear, Evil, Help

“It is known that afore miracles come sorrow and anguish and tribulation; and that is for that we should know our own feebleness and our mischiefs that we are fallen in by sin, to meeken us and make us to dread God and cry for help and grace. Miracles come after that, and they come of the high Might, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, shewing His virtue and the joys of Heaven so far at it may be in this passing life: and that to strengthen our faith and to increase our hope, in charity. Wherefore it pleaseth Him to be known and worshipped in miracles. Then signifieth He thus: He willeth that we be not borne over low for sorrow and tempests that fall to us: for it hath ever so been afore miracle-coming.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 36

Life, God, Faith, Hope

“Loving does not necessarily mean liking. But it still is loving, yes — totally, completely, utterly. Take the key of wisdom and unlock your own heart. Then let people in one by one. Listen to them, with full attention, with all your mind, heart, body and soul, unto exhaustion. And look! — the exhaustion will be lifted, and you will be able to listen still more. Yes, love must be communicated person to person; otherwise it will not be effective.”

Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) Religious order founder; Servant of God

Molchanie (1982)

Love, People, Soul, Communication

“The word Imperialism still has to many people in this country a rather sinister meaning. They associate it—wrongly in my view and in your view—the idea of exploitation, of riding roughshod over the world, of jingoism and of selfishness in public policy. It was not that to Lord Milner, and it is not that to us. It is rather this—the spreading throughout such parts of the world as we control, or in which we have influence, of all those ideas of law, order, and justice which we believe to be peculiar to our own race. It is to help people who belong to a backward civilisation, wisely to raise them in the scale of civilisation—an extraordinarily difficult task, and one which needs wisdom for its consummation. There is no country in the world upon whom that task has been imposed to the same degree as our own country, and it is undoubtedly by the way in which we fulfil that task that we shall be judged at the bar of history, not perhaps to-day, but by those who come after us of our own blood.”

Stanley Baldwin (1867–1947) Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom

Speech in Oxford (15 May 1925), quoted in On England, and Other Addresses (1926), pp. 185-186.
1925

People, World, Justice, Law

“In spite of several plus points to their credit – like the wisdom, courage, and sagacity of Draupadi, Tara and Damayanti, the keen and lively interest they evinced in their surroundings and also the part played by the former two in the management of their respective realms, the strong sense of duty, love and loyalty to their respective husbands as shown by Kunti, Mandodari and Shakuntala, the carving for knowledge as expressed by Maitreyi – none of them is a model for Hindu women.”

Kunti character from Indian epic Mahabharata

Prabhati Mukherjee in:"Hindu Women: Normative Models", p. 49.

Love, Women, Courage, Knowledge

“In my experience, psychoanalysis demanded loyalty that could not be questioned, the blind acceptance of unexamined "wisdom". It is characteristic of religious orders to seek obedience without scepticism, but it spells the death of intellectual enquiry. All variants of "because I say so," or because the Koran says so, or the Bible says so, or the Upanishads say so, or Freud says so, or Marx says so, are simply different means of stifling intellectual dissent. In the end they cannot satisfy the inquisitive mind or still the doubts that naturally arise when such a mind is confronted with authoritative statements about human behavior.”

Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson (1941) American writer and activist

Source: Final Analysis (1990), pp. 209-210

Death, Behavior, Question, Nature

“The story of Joseph in Egypt and of the seven fat and the seven lean years has passed into the homely wisdom of the ages; but our economic thinking seems to have lost contact with so simple and basic approach to prudent management of a nations welfare.”

Benjamin Graham (1894–1976) American investor

Source: World Commodities and World Currencies (1944), Chapter V, Stabilization of Raw Materials, p. 56

Age, Home, Thinking

“Surely just about everybody has faced a moral dilemma and secretly wished, "If only somebody — somebody I trusted — could just tell me what to do!" Wouldn't this be morally inauthentic? Aren't we responsible for making our own moral decisions? Yes, but the virtues of "do it yourself" moral reasoning have their limits, and if you decide, after conscientious consideration, that your moral decision is to delegate further moral decisions in your life to a trusted expert, then you have made your own moral decision. You have decided to take advantage of the division of labor that civilization makes possible and get the help of expert specialists.We applaud the wisdom of this course in all other important areas of decision-making (don't try to be your own doctor, the lawyer who represents himself has a fool for a client, and so forth). Even in the case of political decisions, like which way to vote, the policy of delegation can be defended. … Is the a dereliction of [one's] dut[y] as a citizen? I don't think so, but it does depend on my having good grounds for trusting [the delegate's] judgment. … That why those who have an unquestioning faith in the correctness of the moral teachings of their religion are a problem: if they themselves haven't conscientiously considered, on their own, whether their pastors or priests or rabbis or imams are worthy of this delegated authority over their own lives, then they are in fact taking a personally immoral stand.This is perhaps the most shocking implication of my inquiry, and I do not shrink from it, even though it may offend many who think of themselves as deeply moral. It is commonly supposed that it is entirely exemplary to adopt the moral teachings of one's own religion without question, because -- to put it simply — it is the word of God (as interpreted, always, by the specialists to whom one has delegated authority). I am urging, on the contrary, that anybody who professes that a particular point of moral conviction is not discussable, not debatable, not negotiable, simply because it is the word of God, or because the Bible says so, or because "that is what all Muslims [Hindus, Sikhs… ] [sic] believe, and I am a Muslim [Hindu, Sikh… ]" [sic], should be seen to be making it impossible for the rest of us to take their views seriously, excusing themselves from the moral conversation, inadvertently acknowledging that their own views are not conscientiously maintained and deserve no further hearing.”

Daniel Dennett book Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon

Breaking the Spell (2006)

Life, God, Faith, Religion

“The bottom line is that monetary policy is a lot harder in the post-crisis world. We have learned a lot from the past five years, but there is still much we do not know. Policymakers, including the new Federal Reserve chair, are going to need flexible minds, good research, and the wisdom of ordinary Americans if they are going to meet the challenges that lie ahead.”

Christina Romer (1958) economist

"Monetary Policy in the Post-Crisis World: Lessons Learned and Strategies for the Future", Sumerlin Lecture, Johns Hopkins University, October 25, 2013.

Lie, World, Learning, Past

“Age is no more near than youth
To the sceptre and the crown.
Vain the wisdom, vain the truth;
Do not lay thy rapture down.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

The Nuts of Knowledge (1903)

Truth, Youth, Age

“Serfs and slaves were always given at least enough to keep them physically well. But present-day society has ignored the wisdom of this fair provision.”

Robert Hunter (author) (1874–1942) American sociologist, author, golf course architect

Source: Poverty (1912), p. 8

“My basis is supported by the authority of the greatest moralist of modern times; for such, undoubtedly, J. J. Rousseau is,—that profound reader of the human heart, who drew his wisdom not from books, but from life, and intended his doctrine not for the professorial chair, but for humanity; he, the foe of all prejudice, the foster-child of nature, whom alone she endowed with the gift of being able to moralise without tediousness, because he hit the truth and stirred the heart.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book On the Basis of Morality

Part III, Ch. VIII, 9, p. 230 https://archive.org/stream/basisofmorality00schoiala#page/230/mode/2up On the Basis of Morality (1840)

Life, Truth, Books, Support

“Body work must be approached with the same respect and attentiveness that one gives to dreams. The body has a wisdom of its own. However slowly and circuitously that wisdom manifests, once it is experienced it is a foundation, a basis of knowing that gives confidence and total support to the ego. To reach its wisdom requires absolute concentration: dropping the mind into the body, breathing into whatever is ready to be released, and allowing the process of expression until the negative, dammed energy is out, making room for the positive energy, genuine Light, to flood in.”

Marion Woodman (1928–2018) Canadian writer

Source: The Pregnant Virgin (1985), p. 60

Dreams, Confidence, Support, Light

“We don't get Top Rope Theatre at the Palace of Wisdom”

John Hennigan (1979) American professional wrestler

The Palace Of Wisdom

“At a time when sentiments are so much divided, every man I trust, will give his vote with the recollection and the consciousness that it may depend upon his single vote whether the miseries, the crimes, the atrocities that I fear are now proceeding in China are to be discountenanced or not. We have now come to the crisis of the case. England is not yet committed. But if an adverse vote be given…England will have been committed. With you then, with us, with every one of us, it rests to show that this House, which is the first, the most ancient, and the noblest temple of freedom in the world, is also the temple of that everlasting justice without which freedom itself would be only a name or only a curse to mankind. And I cherish the trust and belief that when you, Sir, rise in your place to-night to declare the numbers of the division from the chair which you adorn, the words which you speak will go forth from the walls of the House of Commons, not only as a message of mercy and peace, but also as a message of British justice and British wisdom, to the farthest corners of the world.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech https://api.parliament.uk/historic-hansard/commons/1857/mar/03/resolution-moved-resumed-debate-fourth in the House of Commons (3 March 1857) against the Second Opium War. 1850s

World, Fear, Peace, Justice

“Saintliness does not hinge upon those things which are put at a premium by the foolishly "saintly," but upon true perfection and great wisdom.”

Moshe Chaim Luzzatto book Mesillat Yesharim

Mesillat Yesharim (1738), Introduction

Perfection

“There is a wisdom of the Head, and … there is a wisdom of the Heart.”

Charles Dickens book Hard Times

Bk. III, Ch. 1
Hard Times (1854)

Heart, Deep

“It is true that many scientists are not philosophically minded and have hitherto shown much skill and ingenuity but little wisdom.”

Max Born (1882–1970) physicist

Source: Natural Philosophy of Cause and Chance (1964), p. 2

“Neither art nor wisdom may be attained without learning.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Source Book in Ancient Philosophy (1907), The Golden Sayings of Democritus

Art, Learning

“I have denied my eyes, both inner and outer. I am not a child, or virgin, or modest wife, fearing to offend. No one owns my eyes now but me. If I have not the stomach by now to look upon any sight in the world, good or evil, beautiful or vile, when shall I? It is far too late for innocence. My only hope is the much more painful consolation of wisdom. Which can grow out of knowledge alone. Give me my true eyes. I want to see. I have to know.”

Lois McMaster Bujold (1949) Science Fiction and fantasy author from the USA

Source: World of the Five Gods series, Paladin of Souls (2003), p. 201

Pain, World, Fear, Beauty

“It may be that to eat and be eaten are the same thing in the end. My wisdom tells me that this is probably so. We are all made of the same stuff, remember, we of the Jungle, you of the City. The same substance composes us — the tree overhead, the stone beneath us, the bird, the beast, the star — we are all one, all moving to the same end. Remember that when you no longer remember me, my child.”

P. L. Travers (1899–1996) Australian-British novelist, actress and journalist

Hamadryad, the King Cobra in Ch. 10 "Full-Moon"
Mary Poppins (1934)

Star, Bird, Tree

“By science I mean an assemblage of transcendental propositions discoverable by human reason, and reducible to first principles, axioms, or maxims, from which they may all be derived in a regular succession; and there are consequently as many sciences as there are general objects of our intellectual powers: when man first exerts those powers, his objects are himself and the rest of nature; himself he perceives to be composed of body and mind… and in the leisure… his intellect is directed to nature at large, to the substance of natural bodies, to their several properties, and to their quantity… and… arrives at the demonstration of a first intelligent cause; whence his collected wisdom, being arranged in the form of science, chiefly consists of physiology and medicine, metaphysicks and logick, ethicks and jurisprudence, natural philosophy and mathematicks; from which the religion of nature (since revealed religion must be referred to history, as alone affording evidence of it) has in all ages and in all nations been the sublime and consoling result.”

William Jones (1746–1794) Anglo-Welsh philologist and scholar of ancient India

p, 125
"On the Philosophy of the Asiatics" (1794)

Age, Religion, History, Intelligence

“Wisdom. No match for the troublemaker Curiosity.”

David Brin book Glory Season

Source: Glory Season (1993), Chapter 16 (p. 265)

“O dawn, you washed them away
in a woman who was clean.
O form of woman, sister of Wisdom,
how great is your glory!
For in you there rose a life unquenchable
that death shall never stifle.
Wisdom exalted you to make
all creatures fairer in your beauty
than they were when the world was born.”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) Medieval saint, prophetise, mystic and Doctor of Church

Ad Vitam S. Ruperti Epilogus 6, Pitra 364.

Life, Death, World, Beauty

“Nothing must be held sacred. Question everything. God is not great, Jesus is not your lord, you are not disciples of any charismatic prophet. You are all human beings who must make your way through your life by thinking and learning, and you have the job of advancing humanity's knowledge by winnowing out the errors of past generations and finding deeper understanding of reality. You will not find wisdom in rituals and sacraments and dogma, which build only self-satisfied ignorance, but you can find truth by looking at your world with fresh eyes and a questioning mind.”

PZ Myers (1957) American scientist and associate professor of biology

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/07/the_great_desecration.php
The Great Desecration
Pharyngula
2008-07-24

Life, God, Truth, World

“Not only virtue, but also insight, not only sanctity but also wisdom, are the duties and tasks of mankind.”

Otto Weininger book Sex and Character

Source: Sex and Character (1903), p. 159.

“Whatever God desires to do is necessarily done; there is nothing that could prevent the realisation of His will. The object of His will is only that which is possible, and of the things possible only such as His wisdom decrees upon. When God desires to produce the best work, no obstacle or hindrance intervenes between Him and that work. This is the opinion held by all religious people, also by the philosophers; it is also our opinion. For although we believe that God created the Universe from nothing, most of our wise and learned men believe that the Creation was not the exclusive result of His will; but His wisdom, which we are unable to comprehend, made the actual existence of the Universe necessary. The same unchangeable wisdom found it as necessary that non-existence should precede the existence of the Universe. Our Sages frequently express this idea in the explanation of the words, "He hath made everything beautiful in his time" (Eccl. iii. 11)… This is the belief of most of our Theologians; and in a similar manner have the Prophets expressed the idea that all parts of natural products are well arranged, in good order, connected with each other, and stand to each other in the relation of cause and effect; nothing of them is purposeless, trivial, or vain; they are all the result of great wisdom. …This idea occurs frequently; there is no necessity to believe otherwise; philosophic speculation leads to the same result; viz., that in the whole of Nature there is nothing purposeless, trivial, or unnecessary, especially in the nature of the spheres, which are in the best condition and order, in accordance with their superior substance.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.25

Men, God, People, Beauty

“The disease having been caused by allowing cleverness to displace wisdom, no amount of clever research is likely to produce a cure.”

E. F. Schumacher (1911–1977) British economist

Source: Small is Beautiful: A Study of Economics As If People Mattered (1973), p. 35.

Disease

“You told me what the first rule of wisdom is," I said. "What is the second rule?"
"That can be answered," he said. "There are five in all. Always ask any questions that are to be asked and never answer any. Turn everything you hear to your own advantage. Always carry a repair outfit. Take left turns as much as possible. Never apply your front brake first…If you follow them," said the Sergeant, "you will save your soul and you will never get a fall on a slippy road.”

Flann O'Brien book The Third Policeman

Page 60
The Third Policeman (1967)

Soul, Question

“The small red eyes regarded him, unblinking. “What would you give me for all the wisdom of the world?”
“Nothing.” He turned back to his work. “I have heard you know the answers to every riddle save one. That will be the one I need answering.””

Patricia A. McKillip book The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

Source: The Forgotten Beasts of Eld (1974), Chapter 4, p. 105.

World

“Longer than memory we have known that each animal has its power and place, each a skill, virtue, wisdom, innocence — a special access to the structure and flow of the world. Each surpasses ourselves in some way. Together, sacred, they help hold the cosmos together, making it a joy and beauty to behold, but above all a challenge to understand as story, drama, and sacred play.”

Paul Shepard (1925–1996) American human ecologist

The Others: How Animals Made Us Human (1996), Island Press, 1997, Part V, p. 173 https://books.google.it/books?id=dwq8BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA173.

World, Beauty, Way, Understanding

“Books … hold within them the gathered wisdom of humanity, the collected knowledge of the world's thinkers, the amusement and excitement built up by the imaginations of brilliant people. Books contain humor, beauty, wit, emotion, thought, and, indeed, all of life. Life without books is empty.”

Isaac Asimov book Puzzles of the Black Widowers

Puzzles of the Black Widowers (1990), pp. 74-75
General sources

Life, People, Books, World

“Half of wisdom is learning what to unlearn.”

Larry Niven book The Ringworld Throne

The Ringworld Throne (1996)

Learning

“Because there are no truths that can be taken possession of without a struggle, and because all knowledge must choose a place in the configuration of hegemonic and oppositional forces, the means of establishing knowledge seem to be almost more important than the knowledge itself. … The demand to universalize the rational draws it into the vortex of politics, pedagogy, and propaganda. With this, enlightenment consciously represses the harsh realism of older precepts of wisdom, for which there was no question that the masses are foolish and that reason is to be found only among the few. Modern elitism has to encode itself democratically.”

Peter Sloterdijk (1947) German philosopher

Source: Kritik der zynischen Vernunft [Critique of Cynical Reason] (1983), p. 11

Truth, Question, Knowledge, Universe

“The question is, whether, like the Divine Child in the Temple, we are turning knowledge into wisdom, and whether, understanding more of the mysteries of life, we are feeling more of its sacred law; and whether, having left behind the priests and the scribes and the doctors and the fathers, we are about our Father's business, and becoming wise to God.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 617.

Life, God, Law, Feeling

“The ideal Ireland that we would have, the Ireland that we dreamed of, would be the home of a people who valued material wealth only as a basis for right living, of a people who, satisfied with frugal comfort, devoted their leisure to the things of the spirit – a land whose countryside would be bright with cosy homesteads, whose fields and villages would be joyous with the sounds of industry, with the romping of sturdy children, the contest of athletic youths and the laughter of happy maidens, whose firesides would be forums for the wisdom of serene old age. The home, in short, of a people living the life that God desires that men should live. With the tidings that make such an Ireland possible, St. Patrick came to our ancestors fifteen hundred years ago promising happiness here no less than happiness hereafter. It was the pursuit of such an Ireland that later made our country worthy to be called the island of saints and scholars. It was the idea of such an Ireland - happy, vigorous, spiritual - that fired the imagination of our poets; that made successive generations of patriotic men give their lives to win religious and political liberty; and that will urge men in our own and future generations to die, if need be, so that these liberties may be preserved. One hundred years ago, the Young Irelanders, by holding up the vision of such an Ireland before the people, inspired and moved them spiritually as our people had hardly been moved since the Golden Age of Irish civilisation. Fifty years later, the founders of the Gaelic League similarly inspired and moved the people of their day. So, later, did the leaders of the Irish Volunteers. We of this time, if we have the will and active enthusiasm, have the opportunity to inspire and move our generation in like manner. We can do so by keeping this thought of a noble future for our country constantly before our eyes, ever seeking in action to bring that future into being, and ever remembering that it is for our nation as a whole that future must be sought.”

Éamon de Valera (1882–1975) 3rd President of Ireland

Radio broadcast http://www.rte.ie/archives/exhibitions/eamon-de-valera/719124-address-by-mr-de-valera/, "On Language & the Irish Nation" (17 March 1943), often called "The Ireland that we dreamed of" speech

Life, Men, God, Happiness

“How the hell do I know what I find incredible? Credibility is an expanding field… Sheer disbelief hardly registers on the face before the head is nodding with all the wisdom of instant hindsight.”

Tom Stoppard Jumpers

George, Act I
Jumpers (1972)

Hell

“Do they find in the history of St. Domingo, and in the present condition of Jamaica, under the recent experiments which have been made upon the institution of slavery in the liberation of the blacks, before God, in his wisdom, designed it should be done — do they there find anything to stimulate them to future exertion in the cause of abolition? Or should they not find there satisfactory evidence that their past course was founded in error?”

Jefferson Davis (1808–1889) President of the Confederate States of America

Speech, 1850
1850s

God, Error, History, Past

“I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of "LEAVES OF GRASS." I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit and wisdom that America has yet contributed. I am very happy in reading it, as great power makes us happy. It meets the demand I am always making of what seemed the sterile and stingy nature, as if too much handiwork, or too much lymph in the temperament, were making our western wits fat and mean.
I give you joy of your free and brave thought. I have great joy in it. I find incomparable things said incomparably well, as they must be. I find the courage of treatment which so delights us, and which large perception only can inspire.
I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which yet must have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little, to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty. It has the best merits, namely, of fortifying and encouraging…”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Letter to Walt Whitman, thanking him for a copy of Leaves of Grass (July 21, 1855)

Happiness, Books, Courage, Nature

“Reason enslaves all whose minds are not strong enough to master her.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

#125
1900s, Maxims for Revolutionists (1903)

Strong

“The problem of distinguishing prime numbers from composite numbers and of resolving the latter into their prime factors is known to be one of the most important and useful in arithmetic. It has engaged the industry and wisdom of ancient and modern geometers to such an extent that it would be superfluous to discuss the problem at length. … Further, the dignity of the science itself seems to require that every possible means be explored for the solution of a problem so elegant and so celebrated.”

Carl Friedrich Gauss book Disquisitiones Arithmeticae

Problema, numeros primos a compositis dignoscendi, hosque in factores suos primos resolvendi, ad gravissima ac utilissima totius arithmeticae pertinere, et geometrarum tum veterum tum recentiorum industriam ac sagacitatem occupavisse, tam notum est, ut de hac re copiose loqui superfluum foret. … [P]raetereaque scientiae dignitas requirere videtur, ut omnia subsidia ad solutionem problematis tam elegantis ac celebris sedulo excolantur.
Disquisitiones Arithmeticae (1801): Article 329

Problem, Science

“At a crisis in my youth he taught me the wisdom of choice: To try and fail is at least to learn; to fail to try is to suffer the inestimable loss of what might have been.”

Chester Barnard book The Functions of the Executive

Source: The Functions of the Executive (1938), p. 31

Youth, Suffering, Learning, Loss

“The Pythagoreans called the monad "intellect" because they thought that intellect was akin to the One; for among the virtues, they likened the monad to moral wisdom; for what is correct is one.”

Iamblichus (240–320) Syrian philosopher

On the Monad
The Theology of Arithmetic
Context: The Pythagoreans called the monad "intellect" because they thought that intellect was akin to the One; for among the virtues, they likened the monad to moral wisdom; for what is correct is one. And they called it "being," "cause of truth," "simple," "paradigm," "order," "concord," "what is equal among the greater and the lesser," "the mean between intensity and slackness," "moderation in plurality," "the instant now in time," and moreover they call it "ship," "chariot," "friend," "life," "happiness."

“Older people are most beautiful when they have what is lacking in the young: poise, erudition, wisdom, phronesis, and this post-heroic absence of agitation.”

Nassim Nicholas Taleb book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms

Source: The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms (2010), p. 24

People, Beauty

“The enemy of the conventional wisdom is not ideas but the march of events.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Affluent Society

Source: The Affluent Society (1958), Chapter 2, Section IV, p. 21

Idea

“On the other hand, the cheapest form of pride is national pride; for the man affected therewith betrays a want of individual qualities of which he might be proud, since he would not otherwise resort to that which he shares with so many millions. The man who possesses outstanding personal qualities will rather see most clearly the faults of his own nation, for he has them constantly before his eyes. But every miserable fool, who has nothing in the world whereof he could be proud, resorts finally to being proud of the very nation to which he belongs. In this he finds compensation and is now ready and thankful to defend, … all the faults and follies peculiar to it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer book Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

From 'Parerga and Paralipomena', Vol. 1, Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life, 'What A Man Represents', pp. 360
Parerga and Paralipomena (1851), Aphorisms on the Wisdom of Life

Life, World, Fools, Personality

“Some signs of understanding are: clemency, knowledge, and silence. Silence is one of the doors to wisdom. It brings about love and is evidence for all good.”

Ali al-Rida (770–818) eighth of the Twelve Imams

Muhammad Kulayni, Usūl al-Kāfī, vol.2, p. 124.
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Love, Understanding, Knowledge, Silence

“Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson book Nature

1840s, Essays: Second Series (1844), Nature

Truth, Effort, Animals, Perfection

“The pure righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; they do not complain of evil, but increase justice; they do not complain of heresy, but increase faith; they do not complain of ignorance, but increase wisdom.”

Abraham Isaac Kook (1865–1935) first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of the British Mandatory Palestine

Arpilei Tohar (1914), p. 2.

Faith, Justice, Light, Evil

“Much has been said of late about world ideals. But I prefer to think of the ideal for America. I like to think there's something more than the patriotism and practical wisdom of the founding fathers. It's good to believe that maybe destiny held this New World republic to be the supreme example of representative democracy and orderly liberty by which humanity is inspired to higher achievement. It is idle to think we have attained perfection, but there is the satisfying knowledge that we hold orderly processes for making our government reflect the heart and mind of the Republic.”

Warren G. Harding (1865–1923) American politician, 29th president of the United States (in office from 1921 to 1923)

1920s, The American Soldier (1920)

World, Democracy, Knowledge, Thinking

“Consider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of the wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil countries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results of their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and inaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette; but the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is here written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another age.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

1870s, Society and Solitude (1870), Books

Men, Age, Learning, Country

“It is with logic as it is with other sciences. They draw wisdom from the mysterious source of plain experience. Agriculture, e. g., aims to teach the farmer how to cultivate the soil; but fields were tilled long before any agricultural college had begun its lectures. In the same way human beings think without ever having heard of logic. But by practice they improve their innate faculty of thought, they make progress, they gradually learn to make better use of it. Finally, just as the farmer arrives at the science of agriculture, so the thinker arrives at logic, acquires a clear consciousness of his faculty of thought and a professional dexterity in applying it.”

Joseph Dietzgen (1828–1888) german philosopher

Letter 2
Letters on Logic: Especially Democratic-Proletarian Logic (1906)

Way, Thinking, Learning, Science

“Hadrian… as you know an architect of note… put a lot of faith in stones… died peacefully… planning a Temple to Wisdom… still, he's dead. Nero -- best not to talk about him -- burnt Rome, caused untold misery, deserved to die; died screaming in a summerhouse.”

Peter Greenaway (1942) British film director

The Belly of An Architect

Faith, Dead

“White magic is supposedly utilized only for good or unselfish purposes, and black magic, we are told, is used only for selfish or "evil" reasons. Satanism draws no such dividing line. Magic is magic, be it used to help or hinder. The Satanist, being the magician, should have the ability to decide what is just, and then apply the powers of magic to attain his goals. Nature, in her ineffable wisdom, wastes nothing. Seemingly useless but parasitic or destructive persons should be used like clay pigeons: for target practice.”

Anton LaVey book The Satanic Bible

The Satanic Bible (1969)

Nature, Evil, Help, Drawing

“May God give me the wisdom which I need and grant me what I so fervently desire, that is, to finish my studies as quickly as possible and he ordained, so that I can perform the practical duties of a clergyman.”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

In a letter to Theo, from Amsterdam, 19 Nov. 1877; as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, (letter 113), p. 18 as student, in Amsterdam, staying in the house of his uncle 1870s

God, Study

“Proper evaluations of words and letters in their phonetic and associated sense can bring the people of earth to the clear light of pure cosmic wisdom.”

Sun Ra (1914–1993) American jazz composer and bandleader

Liner notes for Cosmic Tones for Mental Therapy (1966)

People, Sense, Light

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.”

Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) English writer

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 111

Law

“If men possessed wisdom, which stands in the same relation to the form of man as the sight to the eye, they would not cause any injury to themselves or to others, for the knowledge of the truth removes hatred and quarrels, and prevents mutual injuries.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.11

Men, Truth, Knowledge

“A man begins cutting his wisdom teeth the first time he bites off more than he can chew.”

Herb Caen (1916–1997) American newspaper columnist

Editors of the Reader's Digest. Quotable Quotes, page 144. http://books.google.com/books?id=YdYPgwWFFR0C&pg=PT144 Penguin, 1997 ISBN 1606525956 Attributed

Time

“This [fourth] theory likewise implies contradictions and absurdities. The absurdities are these: The fact that some persons are born with defects, although they have not sinned previously, is ascribed to the wisdom of God, it being better for those persons to be in such a condition than to be in a normal state, though we do not see why it is better; and they do not suffer thereby any punishment at all, but, on the contrary, enjoy God's goodness. In a similar manner the slaughter of the pious is explained as being for them the source of an increase in reward in future life. They go even further in their absurdities.”

Maimónides book The Guide for the Perplexed

Source: Guide for the Perplexed (c. 1190), Part III, Ch.17

Life, God, Suffering, Future

“The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

"The Storyteller" (1936)

Truth, Art

“In the course of history … new books have been written that have won their place in the list. Books once thought entitled to belong to it have been superseded; and this process of change will continue as long as men can think and write. It is the task of every generation to reassess the tradition in which it lives, to discard what it cannot use, and to bring into context with the distant and intermediate past the most recent contributions to the Great Conversation. … the West needs to recapture and reemphasize and bring to bear upon its present problems the wisdom that lies in the works of its greatest thinkers and in the discussion that they have carried on.”

Robert Maynard Hutchins (1899–1977) philosopher and university president

Great Books: The Foundation of a Liberal Education (1954)

Men, Books, History, Problem

“The purpose and cause of the incarnation was that He might illuminate the world by His wisdom and excite it to the love of Himself.”

Peter Abelard (1079–1142) French scholastic philosopher, theologian and preeminent logician

As quoted in "The Abelardian Doctrine Of The Atonement" (1892), published in Doctrine and Development : University Sermons (1898) by Hastings Rashdall, p. 138

Love, World